PERFECT SPECIMEN: Joni Anwar

Yes, I got it right and it's not a typo error.

This dude comes from Indonesia!

JONI ANWAR is an Indonesian-Scots recording artist that made it big in another country -- Thailand. Much confusion has circulated in Southeast Asia that this former "Raptor" singer is a native Thai. Yup, he was born in Bangkok (30 Aug 1981) but this dude holds an Indonesian passport! He is one of the few superstars in Thailand that has foreign citizenship ( just like the Thai diva Christina Aguilar holds a Philippine passport). Here's another perfect example of a Eurasian that made it big and will continue to dominate our region's entertainment industry.

Joni is also known as JONI RAPTOR, from the defunct music duo RAPTOR back in the late 90's together with Louis Scott (a Thai singer). He was 12 years old then. Raptor was a sensation in Southeast Asia spanning their music through Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. The duo retired in 2000. He still got a lot of following fans afterwards.

Here's more of Joni's pics...

Joni released three more albums "Badboy", "Freeman" and "Outtaspace". Joni enjoys all kind of sports especially water sports. He won the third prize in wakeboarding at the X-games Thailand 1998. He joined the Asian X-games in Phuket, too.

Joni is currently in tandem with Jay Montonn Jira with an electronica album. They are known at "KATSUE". Here's their MySpace profile: http://www.myspace.com/katsueband --click it later dammit! :-)

I got a confession to make-- I was once Raptor's biggest fan. (No laughing please!) Hey! What can I do? They were the biggest teen idols in my teenage years. And they were so famous, everybody's wearing what they wearing.

And I can still remember the BIG SHOCK DAY when they (him and Louis) came out wearing different colors of contact lenses on each eye! Oh you wouldn't believe how much trouble I went through just to get the money to buy 2 sets of contact lens in blue and green!!!

(Ok, you can all laugh now ;-).

Joni will always be my perfect example of a Eurasian who conquered almost all of Southeast Asia. Being Eurasian and being a "foreigner in Thailand" did not stop him fulfilling his goals.

JONI DUDE, MY IDOL...YOU STILL RULE!!!! Take that!

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